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School in the cloud: Research on how to get children to teach themselves yields $1-million TED prize for Sugata Mitra

Sugata Mitra of Newcastle University was awarded the $1-million TED Prize for his innovations in getting children to teach themselves.

Photograph by: James Duncan Davidson
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LONG BEACH — Sugata Mitra, an educator whose “hole in the wall” experiment in India discovered how children collectively can teach themselves complex issues, has won the $1-million 2013 TED Prize.

Mitra said he will use the prize, awarded for high-impact projects, to launch a global initiative for self-directed learning that builds on his discovery.

More than a decade ago, Mitra discovered that by putting a stand-alone computer terminal in a slum and leaving it to chance, children intuitively taught themselves how to use it.

His discovery immediately challenged the traditional view that children need to be taught in a structured classroom setting by a teacher.

Mitra, an education technology professor at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, extrapolated his research to eventually show children can learn how to operate computers, understand research and even learn new languages if subjected to what he calls the “grandmother” concept.

That’s where someone other than an authority figure — a parent or a boss — offers encouragement rather than direction in teaching.

He’s now expanded that theory into the development a cloud-based schooling system of what he calls “self-organized learning environments.”

“My wish is to help design the future of learning by supporting children all over the world to tap into their innate sense of wonder and work together,” Mitra said in his acceptance speech at the TED 2013 conference.

TED is an annual global ideas conference that brings together some of the world’s top thinkers and doers. It will be held in Vancouver in 2014 and 2015.

Mitra said his “school in the cloud” will be overseen remotely by a global network of mediators — likely retired teachers — who will use Skype to communicate with the students. He will build a self-sustaining test school in India to continue his experiment. Once the research is complete, the work will be made available for anyone, TED officials said.

Mitra also released a tool kit Tuesday on how to establish self-organized learning environments. The online kit is aimed at parents, educators and teachers.

“Help me build the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with information and mentoring online,” Mitra said. “I also invite you, wherever you are, to create your own miniature child-driven learning environments and share your discoveries.”

Lara Stein, director of the TED Prize, said Sugata “ has not only created a remarkable body of research around self-directed learning, but he has support from teachers around the world who are tapping into his methodology with great success.

“We are thrilled to support his wish, and are excited for him to delve deeper, build his lab in India, and provide platform for educators and parents around the world who wish to explore this model.”

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